'Mad Men': 'Romney's a Clown'

George Romney wasn’t the only real person to be prominently mentioned in Sunday’s episode, which also found Don Draper and Harry Crane trying unsuccessfully to meet the Rolling Stones.

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While they waited, Crane offered a curious bit of gossip about Charlton Heston, who was known in the 1960s as a Democrat and supporter of the Civil Rights Movement and went on to become the conservative president of the National Rifle Association.

Heston, according to Crane, had great marijuana, and once greeted Crane and other guests naked — perhaps because he didn’t know they were coming.

Heston, who died in 2008, and George Romney, who died in 1995, were unavailable for comment. AMC and the NRA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

**END UPDATE

Because this latest season of “Mad Men” is set in 1965, the “Romney” being referred to here is not Mitt Romney but George Romney, our likely nominee’s father and former Republican governor of Michigan.

The character slamming Romney as a “clown” is named Henry Francis and he works for New York Mayor John Lindsay — a Republican. So, wow, Romney must really be a clown if that’s coming from a Republican character and not a Democrat.

Seems odd that such an outstanding show would throw a spell-breaking sucker punch at George Romney (and by extension our probable nominee) into the mix. Whatever the motivation — political, in-joke — the comment doesn’t seem necessary to the story and only serves as a jarring moment that takes you out of the episode.

Worse still, Republican fans of the show (and I am one) will now have to worry about more of this straight through to the end of the season.

The left will say what they always say when they read posts like this: Oh, relax, take a joke (because they’re so good at doing both) — which is easy to say when this never happens to you. And we can relax and take a joke, and we are quite used to falling out of love with television shows that turn on us.

Hopefully, though, the creators of “Mad Men” got this out of their system.

NOTE: This article incorrectly stated that the character of Henry Francis works for Nelson Rockefeller. That error has been corrected.